Two stages of the Martlet 1 sounding rocket were launched at Ben Armine, Scotland, on the 3rd May 2012, as part of The Big Range 2012 launch campaign. Three videos of the launch are show below, which should be watched with sound – for the full launch report click here. More photos and information will …
The Martlet 1 rocket has an HD Go-Pro Hero 2 camera mounted in the nosecone, to take footage during the flight,. A window was needed in the fibreglass wall, so we made first made a mould of the outside of the nosecone outer surface using Siligum. We then cut a porthole, and filled the porthole …
We are proud to announce that the CUSF poster girl for May is Daniel Strange, the famed bearded superscientist. Isn’t she beautiful?
Today we had a pre-launch bash before Martlet 1 is launched next week. The rocket is (almost) ready to go now, with just a few finishing touches to be made. Many thanks also to Andy Hugh and Malcolm Jennings for busting a gut to get the rocket motors to us today. Some of the project’s …
To strengthen the fins, a fillet was put between the fins and the airframe, and then two layers of carbon fibre added over the top of the fillets. The fillets are made of two different parts: (1) epoxy clay at the front and back of the fillets (black), and (2) epoxy lightened with fillite in …
Martlet 1 – Fin fillets + tip-to-tip carbon fibre Read More »
The stages of the Martlet 1 rocket fit together with some finely machined aluminium coupling rings. The coupling rings are then restrained together by some 6mm plastic bolts. In flight, the primary method of separating the stages is to ignite the rocket motor in the next stage. As the pressure in the rocket motor ramps …
Over the weekend we assembled Martlet 1 in its 2-stage configuration (Stage1+3 of the 3-stage configuration). It is likely that the Martlet 1 rocket will be flown as a 2-stage rocket for its first outing at the Big Range launch, in little over a weeks time. The 2-stager is still pretty big – it should …
The Martlet 1 rocket has three stages, and each stage has two parachutes: (1) a small ‘drogue’ parachute that is deployed at apogee, so that the rocket comes down from high altitude in a controlled manner, but without drifting too far. (2) a large main parachute that is deployed near the ground for a soft …
Today we tried a method for vacuum bagging the tip-to-tip carbon fibre onto the fins of the rocket. The tip-to-tip carbon fibre has uni-directional fibres that run down one fin of the rocket, over the body tube and up the next fin. At supersonic speeds, the fins tend to flex and ‘flutter’, and can snap …
Each stage of the Martlet 1 rocket has two parachutes: (1) a small sprung drogue parachute to bring the rocket down fast from high altitude (2) a much large maion parachute that is released near the ground to give a soft landing. The small parachute is deployed at apogee, and then near the ground the …
